Canada By Rail: Montréal, QC

I ate too much crap the day before.  I do this too often and when I do I know I will feel like crap the next day.  I felt like crap when I woke up on our first full day in Montréal.  It also happened to be my fifty-fifth birthday.  I've never been very good on my birthdays.  So, on top of the crappy way my body was feeling, I was also in a matching crappy mood.  Memories of what was happening the last time I was in the city completed the trifecta of crappitude that was the morning of my fifty-fifth birthday.

The 17 Shades of Gay art project in the Village.

We didn't get out of bed until around 11:00 am.  We walked to Dorchester Square to get on the hop on/off bus.  We rode the bus around the city making notes of what we wanted to return to later.  Riding the bus was pretty much the limit of what I was up to this day.  After the two hour ride we walked back to our hotel.

The very cool sunset over Montréal from our tour bus.

We stopped at an Irish pub across the street from the hotel and ate lunch.  This was the first food I'd had since the day before and it was around 2:00 pm.  I had a near perfect French Dip sandwich.  We returned to our room and I fell asleep.

Leonard Cohen tribute.

A few hours later the food/sleep combination revived me and I started feeling alive again.  We went back out and took the evening hop on/off bus.  This evening bus takes a slightly different route that provides views of the sunset and early evening skyline.  I hadn't really been present during the afternoon bus ride but now I saw the city and I took more pictures.  The bus route ended with views of the city lights from Mount Royal.

The next day we got back on the bus and went to Old Montréal.  We went to the Notre Dame Basilica and took a tour.  We were there about an hour taking pictures and learning about the history of the beautiful basilica.

Inside the Notre Dame Basilica.

We walked around Old Montréal and stopped for lunch before getting back on the bus taking it to St. Joseph's Oratory.  It was a warm day and we were sweating as we toured the oratory.  We stopped and had a snack and cold drink in an attempt to revive ourselves.

St. Joseph's Oratory.

We took the bus back to Dorchester Square and walked back to the Irish Pub where we ate dinner before returning to our room for the night.

The view of the downtown city lights from our hotel room balcony. 

Our train was leaving early evening.  It was our first rainy day since Jasper.  We went to a nearby cathedral for Mass before heading into the underground city.  We heard about the underground city from one of our bus tour guides.  The underground city has over two thousand businesses connected by 20.5 miles (33 km) of tunnels.  There were stores, restaurants ... anything you would need.  It turned out to be a nice place to explore on a rainy day.

Palais de justice de Montréal lit up at night.

We took a taxi to the train station and waited to take the last leg of our train adventure.

Photographs can be found in my 2018-06 Canada By Rail Google Photo album.

Onward to our final destination: Halifax.